THE NEWMAN HALL DIVORCE CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 17, 21 October 1879, Page 3

THE NEWMAN HALL DIVORCE CASE.

» The last case which the Divorce Comb, has tried in the just expired legal year, and one which occupied it for an unusual length of time and caused Westminster Hall to be crowded day after day at a time when that place 1b generally destitute of visitors except stray strangers who look in to the afternoon sittings of the House of Commons, was one in which the petitioner was the Rev. Newman Hall, who has been well known in London asa Congvegationalist minister for upwards of thirty years. Formerly he held his services in the comparatively little chapel which the Rev. Rowland Hill built in the Blackfriars road (and which still bears his name though it now belongs to a different denomination of Dissenters.) I forget the name of -Rowland Hill's successor, but when that gentleman died, and a vacancy occurred in the pastor-" ate of the church, the congregation selected Mr Newman Hall, who was then a talented young man coming into repute in the provinces. What, however, is believed to have greatly favoured him was the fact that his futher was the author of a tract that has been popular with every denomination of Christians, and has I am told been translated into more ' languages than any other book, the Bible itself not excepted. Well, having obtained this promotion Mr Hall married, and under very singular circumstances. He does not seem ever to have courted his wife, but when she was eighteen years of age, and he a dozen or fourteen years her senior, it was represented to him that this young lady thought he ought to be married, and as she was the only child of her parents, and a completely spoiled one, there was no knowing what would not happen if she did not have all her own way in the matter of marriage. Accordingly lie pro posed, was accepted, and this passion- " ate beauty became the wife of a calm Dissenting minister. For a time all went on smoothly enough. Mr Hall rose in repute not only with his own congregation but also with the larger audiences of Evangelicals, whom he was called upon to address from time to time, and we have it on his own authority that he considered he would have been one of the foremost men in London had it not been for the ha rassing conduct of his wife. For Mrs Hall had a temper, and that no ordinary one. What it was twenty years ago we have had plenty of cvi« te dence ; what it was now was exhibited fr during her cross-examination, when she stormed, she raved, she cried. She almost insulted the counsel engaged in the case, and altogether behaved so that in the opinion of those . most competent to judge, her own conduct ax this stage of the proceedings lost her her case, and with it her reputation and status in society. For Mr Hall had not a very strong case to present to the jury. He explained that in spite of every tenderness on

his part, and having married tindei such very extraordinaiy circumstances, he had speedily become very fond of bis wife, but that she refused to live with him on the ordinary terms of hus* band and wife, and insisted on living an entirely separate life, and to such an exient did she carry thi3, that she not only forsook his table and his chamber, but one clay, about a dozen years ago, in a violent passion she declared she would never speak to him again- -a vow which both she and her husband were forced to tell the jury she had most rigorously kept. Prior, however, to this event, she had, while at Brighton, formed the acquaintance of one Frank Richardson, the son of an hotelkeeper, and himself a livery stablekeeper and teacher of horsemanship. He came to London, and was a constant visitor at the house ot the Halls. The Rev. Newman himself did not smoke ; few Dissenting ministers of his day did, though some of them do now ; but Mrs Hall thought tobacco nras very good indeed for her remarkable nerves, and accordingly she and young Richardson used to smoke together, and they sat up taking their cigars long after every one else was in bed. Every one knew they were on kibsing terms, but until quite lately it was believed that there was nothing criminal in their proceedings. Eecently, however, it has been discovered that Sichardson and Mrs Hall had on two occasions been out of town together, and on this evidence the jury found a verdict which will divorce her from Mr Hall, and enable the latter next spring to marry again. For he admits that that was the object with which for some years past he has been endeavouring to get up a case against his wife, who on her part has always been jealous of the lady who is to be the second Mrs Hall. At first Mrs Hall brought a coantercharge of adultery against her husband in refeience lo this lady, but at the trial she was not prepared to prove anything beyond the fact that MiHall had openly expressed his intention to marry Miss Mary Wyatt if he obtained his divorce, and her counsel was obliged to withdraw that pait of the answer. This long-fought case has created an immense excitement iD London, particularly amongst the Dissenters — Canterbury Press Home Correspondent.